Download Pick of the Week: Citrix InfoCenter from Frameworx

Ever wanted some additional info from your Citrix Servers ala the BGInfo style program? Frameworx has this sweet utility to do just that called Citrix InfoCenter:

This application allows you to view basic, but critical information about your Presentation Server.

Citrix InfoCenter is based on the same concept as the very popular “BGInfo” from Systernals™.

We are big fans of this product so we decided to build an application that would be conceptually similar to it, but instead, we tailored it for the Citrix Presentation Server environment.

With Citrix InfoCenter you can quickly find :

- Server Name
- IP Address
- Zone Name
- Farm Name
- Active Sessions
- Idle Sessions
- Disconnected Sessions
- Total CPU Usage
- Total Available Memory
One of its best features is that you can select whether you prefer to manually refresh or enable the auto-refresh feature to keep your information always up-to-date.

See

http://www.frameworkx.com/frameworkx/solution.aspx?id=402

Or download direct from:
http://www.frameworkx.com/frameworkx/download.aspx?id=256

Note that this does require .Net 2.0 Framework and CPS 3 or 4.

Peruse the Frameworx site for another cool little gadget to RDP into a Terminal Server with a click from your system tray. http://www.frameworkx.com/frameworkx/solution.aspx?id=405

Good stuff!

Read More

Linspire Does Away with Annual Fee for "Click 'N Run"

This is very cool. The CNR warehouse is loaded with software that instantly installs in Linspire/Freespire. No cmd line tar BS. Making it FREE is a good move.
JK

Linspire Does Away with Annual Fee for "Click 'N Run" Linux ServicePopular One-Click Digital Software Management System Now Free for Desktop Linux Users
SAN DIEGO, August 30th, 2006 - Linspire, Inc., developer of the commercial desktop Linux operating system of the same name and Freespire, the free community desktop Linux operating system, announced the immediate change in pricing for its popular CNR ("Click 'N Run") Service from an annual subscription fee based offering to a completely free service. The CNR Service, with access to over 20,000 desktop Linux applications, has previously been available only with annual subscriptions, ranging from $20 to $50, but will now be offered as a free service for all Linspire and Freespire users.
"For nearly five years, thousands of CNR users have paid annual subscription fees for the CNR Service," said Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire. "We're thrilled to now be in a position to offer this excellent service to desktop Linux users absolutely free. CNR really makes using desktop Linux easy, and we want everyone to have access to this quality service." Due to success in offering premium products and services, Linspire is now able to make the basic CNR service available to everyone at no charge. Linspire and Freespire users will continue being able to use CNR to install, update and manage thousands of free, open source software programs with one click, but now there will be no charge for this service. All CNR users will still have the choice to purchase premium products and services, such as a DVD Player, Sun's StarOffice, Win4Lin Pro, CodeWeavers' CrossoverOffice, TransGaming's Cedega, as well as other commercial software applications including several commercial games. The strong revenue stream from the commercial desktop Linux software applications, as well as the premium "CNR Gold" service, has opened the door for Linspire to offer the basic CNR service at no charge to all Linspire and Freespire users. "CNR is an innovative and feature-rich system for installing, updating and managing software on a desktop Linux computer," stated John Cherry, OSDL Desktop Linux Initiative Manager. "The fact that this service is now free will be an incredible boost for desktop Linux adoption worldwide as it makes thousands of applications immediately available to desktop users."

The price change is effective immediately for all Linspire and Freespire users. To get the free CNR service, Linspire and Freespire users simply use their email address to create a free CNR Service account. Those who purchased the Basic CNR Service in the past 60 days will automatically be upgraded to the CNR Gold Service at no charge.

In addition to the CNR service price change, Linspire also announced today plans for a new, open sourced version of the CNR client that will be released later this year as part of Freespire 1.1. These announcements further extend the value of the Freespire project, allowing anyone to enjoy not only a quality desktop Linux experience, but also an easy-to-use, yet extremely powerful software management system, all at no charge. Linspire is hopeful that by continuing to solve the complexity of Linux software installation, it will attract more software developers to create applications for desktop Linux. About CNR ("Click 'N Run") CNR, with access to over 20,000 Linux software applications, makes it extremely easy for non-technical users to install, uninstall, update and manage Linux software on their desktop or laptop computers (http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/CNR_Warehouse ). With the CNR Service you can freely install thousands of Linux software titles direct from the CNR Warehouse (http://linspire.com/warehouse ), all with just a single mouse click. Users also get a powerful way to manage their entire software library, with advanced features, such as customizable "aisles" where you can install entire groups of software with a single click. About Linspire, Inc. Linspire, Inc. (www.linspire.com) was founded in 2001 to bring choice into the operating system market.
The company's flagship product, the Linspire operating system, is an affordable, easy-to-use Linux-based operating system for home, school, and business users. Linspire pioneered CNR ("Click 'N Run") Technology, which allows Linspire users access to thousands of software programs, each of which can be downloaded and installed with just one mouse click. The thousands of software titles available in the CNR Warehouse (www.linspire.com/cnr) include full office and productivity suites, games, multimedia players, photo management software, accounting tools, and more. About Freespire Freespire (http://www.freespire.org) is a community-driven , Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you.

Read More

Link Pick: Online Apps just keep getting better: Writely

Hi All,
Google has released its online word processor entitled Writely. The lines are starting to get blurred between the Desktop and the browser! With the ajax apps like Office Live, ajaxwrite.com and ajaxXlS, among others the SBC world might one day just have to only concentrate on getting a browser to the user.

What I really like about Writely is that it allows you to save documents as PDF, RTF, html(zip), Word or Openoffice formats, all from an online word processor!

This one is worth checking out!

http://www.writely.com/

Read More

Screenshots of Longhorn Terminal Services Remote Programs

Frameworkx has posted some preview shots of Longhorn Terminal Services Remote Programs installation.

Check them out....

http://www.frameworkx.com/Frameworkx/blog.aspx?blog=56&id=414

Read More

The Blogging world heats up. Windows Live Writer

Boy lots of things heating up in the blogging world. Google is going to Googleize blogger and making all kinds of features available. See this post at:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/08/new-blogger.html

But that isn't the coolest thing I have found in blogging this week. Those of you who use MSN spaces or Blogger or some other service even will appreciate this new beta offering from Microsoft. It is called Windows LiveWriter. Livewriter is a small app that lets you craft your blog entry into a web page and format it nicely with WYSIWYG authoring for posting. For more info have a look at:

http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

And go get it from:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/9/a/f9a19f2d-cec4-4a25-9b0b-eb9655ea7561/Writer.msi

The app takes you through a wizard when you first run it so that you can set it up with your blogging services. Publishing of pictures, maps and content could not be easier, there is even an SDK available for developers to figure out how to get their own content to be used in the app!

Read More

Site Pick of the Week: Joeware Tools

Hi folks,
Came across a pretty good utilities site last night. The site is loaded with freeware tools for Windows and Active Directory. One cool utility called ACCExp lets you set expiration of accounts via a command line. One called Exchmbx is particularily cool also. It lets you do command line changes on an exchange mailbox. Overall there is lots of goodes on this site for AD tools and tools for various versions of windows. A link that most admins will want to add to their toolkit.

http://www.joeware.net/win/free/index.htm

Read More

FreeSpire Released and Already a VMWare Appliance for it!

Linspire released a free version called FreeSpire yesterday:
Get it at http://www.freespire.org
Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you.

And faster you than you can blink an eye a VMWare Appliance popped up for it:

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/518

Applications installed on the Appliance are:Thunderbird email, Firefox browser, Complete Office Suite (OpenOffice 2.0), Instant Messaging, Digital Music (LSongs), Digital Photo Management (LPhoto), Advanced Wireless Capability, Plug and Play ready, Web Publishing tools (NVU)

Everything you need to get started!

Read More

Link Pick: TechInterviews.com

Hi Everyone,

Here is my link pick for the week. We finally get to hire someone in our IT department after not being able to do so for over 7 years. I had to brush up on my interviewing questions and found this excellent web site that addressed every one of my needs:

http://www.techinterviews.com/


I specifically like this set of questions from the site:

http://www.techinterviews.com/?p=300

Both employers and job seekers should find this a most useful site.

I tried to find a person who runs this site to let them know it is good stuff. It claims to be run by a company called Digital Media Ventures and when you look up them, the info you get is: Digital Media Ventures LLC operates various ventures and doesn't operate others. : ) Funny stuff.

Read More